ABSTRACT
The Presiding Judge ordered the examination of Pierre Laval. It commenced not with questions to the accused but with a statement delivered by the judge who relished the spotlight and the opportunity to put his stamp on the trial. The Presiding Judge plunged ahead. Contact with the realities of power, he said, had changed Laval. Laval's rise both in Parliament and at the bar had aroused the enmity of those who observed it. So he had faced covetousness, jealousy, malice and all of these had affected him. Judge Paul Mongibeaux reviewed Laval's foreign policy. He had clashed with countries that could have been allies. Mongibeaux continued, the rivalries, the jealousies Laval had encountered in domestic policy he had also found in foreign affairs. In domestic policy, Mongibeaux conceded that Laval had made financial reforms that he had cleaned things up.
